Hokey smokes—here we are in April. So you know it's time for National Poetry Month! Let’s kick it off with “Spring”, by one of my all-time favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins.
It’s possible his short life (1844-1889) perhaps contributed to
the intensity of his works. He converted to Roman Catholicism while at Oxford
and spent his adult years as a Jesuit priest. He wrote some poems while at
university, but almost nothing was known of his poetry until after his death.
Had he not sent some to his friend Robert Bridges (eventually Poet Laureate of
Britain), I shudder to consider what we might have lost.
Hopkins used assonance, onomatopoeia and alliteration as well as
rhyme. He had no fears about pushing the limits of form to make his point.
His “Pied Beauty” is
one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard, and I dare you to read it without
your face wanting to smile and your heart wanting to lift. It is joy captured
like a butterfly resting momentarily in your cupped hands.
Let’s just lean into the month like Hopkins leans into the season.
“Spring”
Nothing is so beautiful
as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and
lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and
thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and
wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they
brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a
rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their
fling.
What is all this juice
and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it
cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with
sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and
boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the
winning.
